Implications for air quality from net zero policies and pathways in the UK

Air pollution and human-induced climate change represent two of the greatest environmental risks to human health and their causes and impacts are complex and interrelated. Calls have been made for a co-ordinated policy response but identifying mutually beneficial policies is not as simple as it might seem. The impacts of policy are often dependant on, for example, the economy, technological change, how society or business responds and the wider context in which they occur. And the direction and magnitude of impact on emissions of greenhouse gases or air pollutants may change through the lifetime of the policy implementation.

This PhD will explore specific UK net zero policies from a systemic perspective, with a focus on identifying where there are opportunities for significant co-benefits for air pollution that can be realised and where there may be trade-offs that need to be recognised and, if possible, mitigated, or minimised. The analysis will look further than the obvious impacts of desired policy endpoints to explore how different pathways and transitory activities affect air pollution throughout policy implementation. The project will use systems approaches alongside evidence synthesis to carry out secondary research, produce novel insights, and identify major knowledge gaps. It will aim to identify specific areas of risk and/or opportunity, and to inform current thinking about how the UK can leverage greater environmental gains from actions to limit our climate impacts. The PhD work will benefit from existing relationships with the Air Quality and Industrial Emissions Team in Defra.